


go up on the mountain, call my black cat back

by Morbane



Category: The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.
Genre: Catboys & Catgirls, Comes Back Wrong, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 16:51:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20294809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morbane/pseuds/Morbane
Summary: Pete always comes back.But Viva doesn't think he always will.





	go up on the mountain, call my black cat back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesertScribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertScribe/gifts).

Sometimes Aaron Viva gets wind that Pete Hutter's back on the circuit through an urgent bulletin of outlaws active in a town or two over (which all too often arrives after the outlaws it names). He's reformed these days, or something of the kind, but he still mixes with a lot of bad crowds. Sometimes it's an out-of-towner's 'funny' story of more mayhem than mayhap, which Viva wishes he could laugh at; more often he sighs.

This time it's a can clanging in the building behind the jail.

He pokes his head out to see if it's a skunk or something more noisome, and feels his jaw drop wider than it was when he chowed down on Miss Lenore's Suckling Special. 

It's Pete. Pete, looking almost as much worse for wear as he should if the rumours about his last demise are true. Pete, sporting a more luxurious moustache than usual over an under-groomed chin. His hat's jammed on his head kind of lop-sided, like maybe he's nursing swelling there under a bruise.

"Pete," Viva says, collecting his jaw up off the dusty ground. "I heard you were dead again. I know wandering's in your blood, but I wish you'd call by when that happens, or send a telegraph. Saves me wondering. You done shook me up."

"Sorry, Sheriff," Pete says, kinda hoarse, looking like he means it. "It took me a while to make my way back. Been experiencing a little complaint that I won't go into that makes it harder than it ought to plant my posterior on a horse."

Which doesn't excuse the lack of written correspondence, but Viva lets it go. Pete's trouble, sure enough, but he's still glad to see him.

He's surprised when Pete turns down a suggestion that they jam together. "My ears are a little sensitive in this weather," Pete says, and Viva thinks of the possible bruise to his temple and says no more.

They make a different kind of music.

Pete must have been filing his nails for guitar-strumming, before his last altercation. He leaves scratches.

He says he can't stay long, and Viva nods. He fills him in on the Hard Rock news. A mouse runs across the floor while they're talking, and Pete jumps like something's run over his grave. "You been having a problem with critters?" he asks. "I got a way with them." And it's true, for the whole month he's there, there's neither a squeak nor a peek from rodent-kind.

* * *

The next time Pete dies he comes back with a longer tail.

Yes - it was a tail; Viva's no fool and he isn't crazy, either, though he's told Pete goodbye often enough when he didn't want to that there's a case to be made there. Pete didn't say anything about it, and Viva didn't make anything of it, but it's a lot more than a lump on Pete's rump, and he walks different, too, with a little sashay. Pete was always fond of a little mincing, just as an affectation, but before it wasn't all the time. Now it is. Pete sashays off into a rainy morning, sitting side-saddle on his horse like he's daring someone to make something of it, and Viva watches him go and thinks.

What Viva wonders first is if it's a devil's bargain, Pete coming back from situations that would put anyone else in the grave. And if so, maybe that tail that Pete's growing is going to end up with a fork in it, and his strangely rising ears are on their way into forming horns.

But there's the fur.

And the mice.

And - well. There's still something so sweet about Hutter, so earnest, that Viva can't quite see him taking his chances at a crossroads. 

But he worries.

Because Pete keeps coming back, but as best Viva can reckon, he doesn't have infinite chances.

Only nine.

And he's a little worried that cats can't count, and, too, that the more catlike Pete becomes, the less he'll understand of how much he counts with Viva.


End file.
